China said on Sunday that "wisdom and patience" are needed to find solutions to the nuclear issues on Korean Peninsula.

President Hu Jintao and US President George W. Bush held a 75-minute meeting on the sideline of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) on Sunday, during which Hu expressed the willingness to work with all parties, including US, to push the resumption of the Six-Party talks at appropriate time.

"We should insist on peaceful dialogues and find practical solutions with wisdom and patience to achieve the denuclearization of the Peninsula at an early date," said Hu.

He urged all parties to reaffirm the commitments made in the joint statement signed by six countries in September of last year. Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), US, Republic of Korea, China, Russia and Japan are involved in the talks.

In the "September 19 joint statement," DPRK is committed to abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programmes, while US affirmed that it has no nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula and has no intention to attack or invade the DPRK with nuclear or conventional weapons.

But follow-up discussions in November 2005 failed to make any progress on implementing the deal and no meetings have been held since. Pyongyang tested a nuclear device on Oct. 9.

Bush told Hu that international community should give signals to urge DPRK to take right action and be on the right track.

The US hopes to resolve the problem through peaceful means and hopes the Six-Party talks could achieve success, Bush was quoted as saying by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao.

On the Iranian nuclear issue, Hu urged all parties to "keep patience and calmness" and hold contact and dialogues with Iran to find effective solution, so as to create conditions for the resumption of negotiations.

Bush said that the Security Council of the United Nations should adopt resolute and rational attitudes towards the Iranian nuclear issues.

Strategic economic dialogue

China and US will hold their first strategic economic dialogue in the middle of next month, according to Hu.

US Secretary of Treasury and Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi will lead the dialogue, which is expected to cover many issues of common concerns in economic and trade sectors.

"The dialogue mechanism will be very important for pushing bilateral economic and trade co-operation," said spokesman Liu, noting both China and US are important trade members in the global economy.

Hu said that bilateral trade has also been expanding very rapidly. According to US figures, US exports to China in the first seven months of this year jumped 35 per cent.

Bilateral trade reached US$211.63 billion last year, up 24.8 per cent over the previous year. China enjoys the surplus of US$114.17 billion.

Both leaders are satisfied with the development of bilateral ties.

They have already met three times this year, had four telephone conversations and maintained great exchange of letters.

"It is fair to say that we had kept very close touch and has vigorously promoted the China-US relations", said Hu, noting he witnessed the new progress in bilateral ties since they met in S. Petersburg of Russia this July.

The two countries have maintained frequent exchange of visits at the top levels and different levels, according to Hu.

China's naval ships have paid visit to US for the first time in the six years, and the naval ships of two countries are conducting joint search and rescue maneuvers today (on Sunday) in Chinese waters.

"We are happy with the healthy and stable development of bilateral relations," said Hu.

Bush said that China and US both realize that working together can accomplish a lot in security in the world and prosperity of the people.

"China is a very important nation and the United States believes strongly that by working together we can help solve problems such as North Korea and Iran," said Bush.

He admitted there are some problems in bilateral trade, but promised to adopt the spirit of mutual respect to solve problems in the interests of people.

"With as much commerce between our countries as there is, there's going to be trade difficulties," Bush said, "but nevertheless we both adopt a spirit of mutual respect and the desire to work through our problems for the common good of our peoples."

As the "stakeholder" and "constructive cooperator", China and US increase mutual trust, appropriately deal with differences and push the advancement of constructive and co-operative ties, according to Hu.

He urged US to appropriately handle the question of Taiwan by keeping commitments and not sending any wrong signals to Taiwan independence forces.

Bush said that US understands the sensitivity of the question of Taiwan as well as its impact on Sino-US relations. The US government does not have any change to its policy on Taiwan, he noted.

Hu also called for increasing cooperation in Asia-Pacific region to maintain the peace, stability and prosperity in the region.

The two sides should expand exchanges in such sectors as anti-terrorism, non-proliferation, defence, energy, aerospace, science and technology, education, culture, public health and youth so as to enrich contents of bilateral partnership.

The US welcomes the development of China and does not worry about competition caused by China's development, said Bush.

(China Daily November 19, 2006)

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